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After complaining about the fact that the economic recovery in the United States hasn't been as robust as most people would like to see and of course blaming President Obama for the number of people who are still out of work, The O'Reilly Factor's guest host, Laura Ingraham, brought in Fox regular Gary B. Smith and Demos' David Callahan to discuss the topic. To no one's surprise, when Callahan suggested that the wealth being generated by our economy is going to the 1 percent and that stronger labor unions and a higher minimum wage might help to fix that problem, he was immediately pooh-poohed by Ingraham.

INGRAHAM: Stronger labor unions? How do we compete with China, Vietnam, South Korea, India, when we are going to have stronger labor unions that insure that we have more work place regulations, more ways that business has to pay more money to make ends meet? The two things don't add up.

Ingraham went on to complain that it's unfair to blame our obstructionist Congress for any of the problems with our economy. She then allowed Smith to make the claim that unionization doesn't work and that is why we have record low levels of unionization in the United States.

Sorry Gary, but record low numbers of union members is not because unions "don't work" or because people don't want to join unions. It's due to union busting and having the laws stacked against them. Unions have worked just fine for what they're supposed to do, which is collectively bargain for better working conditions and wages for their membership -- and we can thank unions for things like ending child labor, the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, and a long list of other protections for workers too long to list here.

I have a question for Laura Ingraham. If she would like a race to the bottom in the name of staying competitive, maybe she can volunteer to work for that same wage, instead of being paid millions to bloviate on the radio and Fox “News”. If below-minimum wage keeps us competitive with Asia, I say let's start with her salary. What do you think Laura? You ready to work for a few dollars an hour or less?

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Ingraham has a net worth of $45 million and is paid $15 million a year. There's nothing like listening to a millionaire telling the rest of us how horrible it is for business that someone is actually paid a living wage.

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It wouldn't be a Saturday morning on Fox "news" if they didn't have at least five or ten of these type of segments their so-called "business block," bashing unions and blaming workers for the problems with our economy. And as always on these shows, they have one Fox "Democrat" on there, who agrees to come on and be ganged up on five to one with very little chance to speak.

Host Brenda Buttner opened up the show asking if the protests against Wal-Mart and the airlines are a bigger threat to a jobs recovery than this "fiscal cliff" which is usually their favorite topic to fearmonger over and push for cuts to our social safety nets and austerity.

Naturally, most of them agreed and did their best to portray unions as the big, bad bullies, even though unionization in the United States is at an all time low and the companies as the poor, aggrieved parties who are being "kicked around" by those union thugs. And the unions are now going to get Congress to allow for easier unionization because President Obama won reelection, never mind the fact that Republicans are still controlling the House and that they couldn't get that passed when the Democrats did have both houses of Congress and the presidency.

I will give their lonely "Democratic consultant" Steve Murphy credit for at least pointing out that it's a good thing for the economy for workers to have money in their pockets and that wages are at all time low right now. He also pointed out that there are economies in northern Europe doing very well with high levels of unionization and that the United States' economy was doing better when we had higher levels of unionization as well, which of course was met by jeers and sneers from the rest of the panel members.

And of course the notion that we should be able to do anything about outsourcing, states competing against each other with a race to the bottom on wages was treated as an impossibility. And naturally, the topic of CEO pay, hedge funds and the Romney/Bain model of extracting wealth from companies, and the increasing income disparity we've seen for decades now never came up.

Another day on Fox, another day of divide and conquer and attack workers as being overpaid, or unreasonable for wanting to earn a living wage and maybe retire with some dignity before they drop dead. I'm sure their wingnut welfare from Uncle Rupert for spreading this anti-worker propaganda pays a whole lot better than those people out there working in the Walmart stores, or for the auto companies or for the airlines.

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Another Saturday, another week for members of Fox's Saturday morning "business block" to sit around and promote a race to the bottom for American workers. This segment the topic was President Obama's new pick to lead his Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Krueger. Their issue with Krueger? He supports increases in the minimum wage, which they naturally start fearmongering over, even though there's not a chance in hell we'd see another increase with the makeup of this current Congress.

BUTTNER: Meet Alan Krueger. He's the President's pick to lead his team to help turn around the economy. And he's also a big time believer in hiking the minimum wage. But, Gary B. you say in this bad economy, the way to get jobs back is to ditch the minimum wage altogether.

SMITH: Absolutely Brenda. Look, you know, minimum wage is nothing more than a form of price control. That's what it is, and even if you believe wholeheartedly in the goodness of the minimum wage, all you have to do is the statistics. When... the last time we bumped minimum wage in 2009, youth unemployment was 21%. It went to 30%. Black teen unemployment is now over 40% Brenda. So it's not just wrong to say minimum wage is good. I think it's irresponsible, particularly in this economy.

After the panel's one lonely liberal, Jehmu Greene called him out for just being wrong on the facts and some back forth between Greene and a couple of the other panel members on whether raising the minimum wage increases unemployment or hinders job growth or not, panelist Todd Schoenberger goes into a full rant agreeing with Gary B. Smith that the minimum wage should be eliminated or at least reduced, claiming that it's killing job growth in our economy and can lead to inflation.

You've got to love the reaction from the rest of them when Greene finishes off the segment with this statement:

GREENE: Well, forget the minimum wage. Why don't we just have the wages of the salaries keep up with where CEO's have been in the last few years. And if that was the case, you would have workers making $22 an hour, but that's clearly not the case.

Followed by all of the wingnuts on the panel's heads simultaneously exploding. Heaven forbid anyone brings up the horrible income disparity we have in the United States while they're debating whether the lowest income earners among us should be paid even less.

Media Matters posted a shorter portion of this segment and linked some research they did on the matter when Fox's John Stossel was making similar claims to those of Smith and Schoenberger -- Fox's Stossel Ignores Evidence To Rail Against Minimum Wage.

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On Fox's Bulls & Bears, after having a really ridiculous discussion about whether President Obama was "fearmongering" or not when he said he could not guarantee that Social Security checks would go out if our members of Congress were actually irresponsible enough to allow the United States government to default on our debt guest Caroline Heldman points out that it would more likely be things like unemployment, housing and food stamps that would end up getting cut. To which we got this screaming reply by one of their regular guests, Tobin Smith.

SMITH: Well Caroline, I can't believe I'm saying this now, but I'm so fed up with this, cut it! I mean, give people the sense, the visceral sense of what it is to be spending, of having 40% of our spending coming from real money and borrowing the 60% of it. Cut it! Let the chips fall where they may. And then we'll find out what really important in this (inaudible).

Of course getting rid of the Bush tax cuts that were sold as being acceptable at the time because we had a budget surplus must be kept in place along with spending on the military industrial complex, but hey, if the poor have to feel some pain to see how much our country is borrowing now because Republicans decide we don't want to pay for busting the budget under the Bush administration and after bailing Wall Street out, that's just fine and dandy.

Earlier on the same show, Eric Bolling let everyone know how wonderful he thought higher unemployment among federal workers was. Fantastic! Just get rid of all of them. Idiot. I think Bolling's doing his best to fill Glenn Beck's spot on Fox as being their most offensive talking head.

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Fox is at it again, bashing unions. Of course the panel on Bulls & Bears thinks this is a fantastic idea other than their one out-gunned "Democratic strategist" -- GM may link vehicle quality, employee pay incentives. This might be a good time for a reminder of just what it took for American auto workers to get rid of things like piece work in the first place.

The historic 1936-37 Flint auto plant strikes:

The feisty young United Auto Workers launched the first of a series of sit-down strikes against General Motors at Fisher Body Plant No. 1 in Flint. The goals were to earn recognition for the UAW as the bargaining agent for GM workers, and to make the company stop shipping work to plants with nonunion workers. The strike lasted 44 days and became the first of many union victories. [...]

On Nov. 18, 1936, the UAW struck a Fisher Body plant in Altanta. On Dec. 16, they hit two GM plants in Kansas City, and on Dec. 28, a Fisher stamping plant in Cleveland. Two days later they struck Fisher Body No. 1 in Flint. Within two weeks, approximately 135,000 men from plants in 35 cities in 14 states were striking General Motors.

As the nation was emerging from the Great Depression, the striking workers enjoyed the sympathy of most of the people, including Michigan governor Frank Murphy and popular New Deal President Franklin Delano Roosvelt. Roosevelt had promised in his inaugural speech to drive out the "economic royalists," a pointed reference to the General Motors officials. [...]

The News gave this account: "The guardsmen forming a line around the No. 4 plant were part of a contingent of 1,200 who formed a bayoneted ring of steel around the 80-acre grounds which house all 12 plants of the Chevrolet Motor Car Co. at Flint. Machine guns emplacements were at strategic approaches and except for a small group of pickets outside the gates of the No. 4 plant, all visitors were barred unless they had special military passes.

"The guardsmen surrounded the grounds and 'enforced peace' on orders of Gov. Murphy, following the rioting."

The News also gave the union version: "Then company police and hundreds of thugs, armed with tear gas pistols, tear gas bombs, blackjacks and clubs manufactured in the Chevrolet woodshop, attacked all workers in the plant, using floods of tear gas. It was a clear case, apparently, of company thugs against the workers since all the injured workers were found in the plants and no one was injured on the outside of the company property. City police do not seem to have been involved."

The National Guard fixed bayonets and halted any delivery of food to the occupiers. But the governor never ordered the troops into action.

The strikers vowed a hunger strike until their families could bring them food, or their demands were met. The sit-downers appealed to the governor.

President Roosevelt asked GM to meet with the union once more. The tension subsided. General Motors signed an agreement with the UAW, giving the union bargaining rights in 17 GM plants shut by sit-downs.

Employees at the 17 plants involved got 5 percent pay hikes and were allowed to speak in the lunchroom. The company agreed not to discriminate against union members and agreed to begin negotiations on other matters.

A synopsis of the issues included in the union demands:

1. Recognition of UAW as sole bargaining agency.
2. Abolition of piece work in favor of straight hourly rates.
3. A 30 hour week and 6 hour day, with time and a half for overtime.
4. A "minimum rate of pay commensurate with an American standard of living."
5. Seniority rights based on length of service.
6. Reinstatement of all employes "unjustly discharged."
7. Mutual agreement on "speed of production."

The dramatic military style battles depict the times and the desperation of those involved. The outcome much later in time proved that both the union and the company could coexist and indeed prosper beyond anyone's expectations. Those who made the cars could finally afford to buy them, pouring profits back to the stockholders. Spreading the wealth caused more to be created. The pension and wages won by the workers raised the standard of living for the whole country.